Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Food

Best Jewish Sandwich — Readers’ Choice

In last week’s food section, we gave you 10 amazing Jewish sandwiches from across the country, which in true “top list” fashion sparked some debate over which sandwiches were really the best and which were missing from the list. Luckily, a tidy little poll let readers kvetch constructively by voting for their favorite (with a write-in option). With over 600 votes, favorites were all across the board — and world.

Unsurprisingly, the winner by a landslide (with almost 1/3 of the votes) was the classic Katz’s pastrami. Trailing not terribly far behind Katz’s was the West coast trifecta, Deli Board’s Gold-n-Berg-n-stein (and if you ask us, this one wins the award for best name). The pastrami sandwich at Langer’s was a clear third, and Famous 4th Street Deli’s Bagel with Nova and Cream Cheese, Mile End’s Smoked Meat Sandwich, and Taim’s Sabich garnered enough votes for honorable mentions. As for Shelsky’s Brookyln Transplant, Schnitz NYC’s Bamberg Schnitz, The Bagel’s corned beef sandwich, and Zaidy’s latke reuben — more readers clearly need to try those!

About 100 readers cast their vote for a sandwich that wasn’t on our list. Out of more than 50 additional sandwiches, popular write-ins were the pastrami sandwich at the 2nd Avenue Deli, Brent’s corned beef sandwich in Los Angeles, and a variety of Zingerman’s sandwiches, in Ann Arbor. Though Montreal’s Schwartz’s smoked meat sandwich wasn’t in the running for our list, as it’s not in the U.S., it received much recognition in the write-ins. And even further away, L’as du Falafel in Paris has won the heart of one voter.

With our 10, and the more than 50 write-ins, the votes don’t lie: a yummy Jewish sandwich, it seems, isn’t difficult to find.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.